


:  )

by cuddlesome



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Body Horror, Deception, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Morality, False Identity, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Sad, Shapeshifting, because of how simplified it is?, well., you know how people joke about Milo's face looking like a ditto's
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: A well-intentioned ditto assumes the form and life of Turffield's gym leader after witnessing his death.
Relationships: Rurina | Nessa/Yarrow | Milo
Comments: 38
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy the-day-before-halloween! I'm going to put on my industrial-size clown shoes for saddling myself with another multichap pokémon fic right before nanowrimo.

‘Milo’ watches a baby wooloo roll past his ankles. The little pokémon is enjoying herself, baaing merrily as her fluffy body kicks up dust. He smiles as she continues down the dirt path through Turffield.

“Milo?” A human man carrying a crate of flowers calls out. "Aren't you going to catch that wooloo?"

He blinks. "Should I?"

"You’re the one always on about how we shouldn’t let the lambs get outside of town. Did you hit your head or something?"

"Something like that." He smiles wider but is careful not to laugh. “I’ll go get her.”

He has no trouble catching up to the wooloo. She gets nervous right before she reaches the mines in the south and stops. He picks her up.

“Okay, I got you. Now what?” 

He takes out an empty pokéball from his pocket, feeling slightly ill at the sight of it, but this is what humans do, right? This is what the human called Milo does. He presses the front into the fluff on her side. Nothing happens. The wooloo bleats in protest.

“Oh, you already have one? Where is it?” He cocks his head and pockets the unused pokéball as she baas again. “The stadium?”

"You talk to those wooloos as if you understand them."

He jumps and turns to see a human woman walking out of the cave. Her skin is dark, unlike the pale skin he wears, and her hair is long. She stands taller than him. He doesn't know her name, and that makes him panicky. Humans care a lot about that sort of thing, to the point that they give nicknames to pokémon. She looks at him with a hand on her hip and he realizes she expects an answer.

"Everyone talks to their pokémon. Besides, anything's understandable if you pay close enough attention."

"Wehhh," says the wooloo.

The human looks at the wooloo, lifting her eyebrows. "What did she say, pokémon translator?"

"She thinks you're pretty," he says, candid.

It's the truth, and the wooloo baas again for emphasis. The human scoffs and pushes his shoulder but smiles. 

"I can't decide if that's sweet or twee." She leans down and kisses him on the cheek, then brushes past him, hand lingering on one of his biceps.

He's glad she didn't spend too long on the gesture, because if she had she would've noticed his face is melting, eyes and mouth dipping at an angle, threatening to slide off his chin in a liquidated mass.

He's mortified. A human had put her mouth on his face. Ick. That's one of the multitude of ways humans show affection, but he never imagined experiencing it himself. But it wasn't intended for him, or rather, it. The kiss was for Milo, the real one. But he isn't here right now. He won't be ever again.

The human may not see the state of his face, but the wooloo does. She bleats in fear and tries in vain to struggle free from his arms.

He shushes her and hastily rearranges the cells making up his face. "It's okay, it's okay."

"She good?" The human asks.

"A nickit spooked her, that's all."

The wooloo allows him to carry her back to the stadium, but she's rigid the whole time.

"She's right sullen about being caught, isn't she?" The human comments.

"Mmhm."

After he drops the wooloo off with the rest of her flock, the woman links her arm around his and leads him back outside. Her name is Nessa. He hears it from the florist she buys seedlings from and commits it to memory, sure that she's someone close to Milo. 

"I'm pants at keeping flowers alive. Always overwater them because my pokémon try to help by dousing them every day. Worth another try, though. Besides, it gave me an excuse to see you," she says, sighing over the seedlings held in one hand, then looks at him with sudden sharpness. "Are you okay? You're being very quiet." 

"I'm fine, just tired." He touches her free hand, hoping that the gesture will reassure her the way that he's seen other humans do, but it only distresses her more.

She grabs his hand and lifts it to her face. Her slim fingers have a surprisingly strong grip.

"What happened to your scar?"

"What?"

"You had a big scar, right there on your thumb, from where you cut yourself on a hoe as a kid. You told me all about how you fainted because there was so much blood. What happened to it?" She turns his hand over. "The scar from where that flapple nipped you last month is gone, too."

There was no way that he'd had enough time to observe little details like that. If Nessa looks too closely she might realize that the patterns of freckles on his body aren't the same as the real thing, either.

"They faded." He pulls his hand away, meeting some resistance before she lets go, and adjusts his hat. "Nessa, I just remembered. I need to go water my gossifleurs." 

Claiming ownership of other pokémon always feels wrong, but it'd be strange for a trainer not to, wouldn't it? Even if he successfully articulates that part of the lie, Nessa catches him in another:

"I thought you gave your pokémon water in the morning."

"I forgot. It's very important that I go give it to them before they wither away. I'll see you later." He takes off as fast as his short legs can carry him, stopping some distance away to give her a big smile and wave.

She lifts her hand to wave back, but the motion is stiff. 

Once he gets to the house, he greets his ‘family’ in the kitchen. Such a strange concept to get used to, even more than living in a building. He'd lived his life from the moment he hatched alone. Milo's brother chatters to him about seeing a pumpkaboo on the edge of town, a big one.

"When they're big it means they've got adult souls, right?" The little human looks both terrified and excited. "That's good, I wouldn't want it to come after me..."

"That's just an old wive's tale. All the stories about ghost pokémon are," his mother says, not looking up from arranging berries in a pie crust.

"I wonder what Allister would say..."

'Milo' excuses himself after what he has judged to be a respectable amount of time spent with them. He grabs a couple of berries on the way out and earns a smack on the hand from his mother for his trouble.

Once he reaches his bedroom, he locks the door. He leans against the door and lets his body relax, shrinking and oozing into its natural shape. All the brawn and the smattering of freckles across his face and even his broad sunhat are part of a disguise. They melt together into a blob a fraction of the size of a human. 

The ditto lets itself lay still for a time, practically a puddle, just recovering from the stress of holding the transformation for so long. It opens its eyes and weakly eats the berries it had purloined. The food makes it feel a little better, though it almost chokes on the last bit when it hears a tap at the window.

Despite its fatigue, it reforms into the shape it had held for most of the day, fearing that Nessa is the one outside. 

He needn't have worried. A gossifleur and eldegoss on the windowsill are all that greet him. He opens the window, first relieved, then annoyed.

He braces his hands on the sill and leans out to address them. “What are you doing here? I told you, you’re free now.”

Their pokéballs had been melted to goop by the pokémon that killed their trainer. They're back in their homeland, free to wander, but they never leave the ranch.

The eldegoss calls softly. 

"I know you miss him, but he's gone," he says, a little more aggressive, as aggressive as a voice as soft as Milo's can get. "You should know that better than anyone."

In this form, he looms over the grass types, lacking in height compared to other humans but huge with musculature. They shrink back and huddle close to each other, unused to seeing Milo, or at least the thing that looks like Milo, angry.

"I'm sorry." He shuts his eyes and pushes his fingers through his bangs. "I don't quite understand the... 'bond' that you say you had with that human. I probably never will. But I understand that you're sad. Come here."

He opens his eyes and offers his arms. The gossifleur approaches first, more trusting, as per usual. The eldegoss follows after. 'Milo' hugs them both, snuggling his cheek into the eldegoss' fluffy crown. They both coo against his chest with melancholy that makes him feel sick.

He stares out at the pasture where a flock of wooloo grazes and thinks he sees Nessa passing the fence. He swallows and turns away, keeping the gossifleur and eldegoss secure in his grasp. 

It can't go on like this.


	2. Chapter 2

The gossifleur and eldegoss sleep in the room that night, cuddled together in the crown of an extra sunhat. The ditto lays down on the pillow at the head of the bed and all but liquidates. It sleeps until it is woken up by Milo's little brother banging on the door.

"Did one of your pokémon use sing on you? It's time to get up!"

He has innumerable chores every day. Feeding and watering the wooloos, cleaning up both the pokémon themselves and their waste, feeding and watering all of the grass type pokémon. A lot of manual labor in the fields and orchards and garden after that, all before the sun is up.

How the real Milo managed all of it is beyond him. He cleans himself up, then returns to his room just long enough to scoop up the gossifleur and eldegoss to bring them to the kitchen.

His mother had beaten him there. His brother and father are still cleaning up.

He sets both of the grass types down on a chair—he's been made aware of the "no pokémon on the table" rule—and gets breakfast for all of them. Cooking is still a foreign concept, but he manages mostly-cooked, a-little-raw, a-little-burnt drop scones with cream and berries. He caught on to how they're made by watching the rest of his family make them. He gives gossifleur and eldegoss their share along with shallow bowls of water. He offers some to his mother, who shakes her head and tells him she's already eaten, then takes his own portion of drop scones and sets to devouring them. All the work left him ravenous.

“Your gym-level team has been looking kind of droopy lately," she comments. "Have you been playing with them enough?”

"Ah, right. My gym-level team would be..?"

"Stop kidding around. Those two, Milo,” she says, gesturing to the gossifleur and eldegoss, who both have berry juice stains on their faces. "Chrys and Hendrix."

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from commenting on how silly those names, human names, sound for pokémon. His family is just as suspicious of him as Nessa, but unlike her they aren't willing to be as aggressive in pointing out when he breaks character. His mother hasn't even pointed out how clumsy he is with silverware. Polite to a fault. It's been a few days now and they're still willing to chalk his odd behavior up to some mild sickness.

He’s been vaguely aware of the existence of a gym challenge—he was required to wait around in the stadium for hours on end each day despite the lack of challengers—but despite having them with him, he didn't know that these two were the pokémon Milo typically battled with. They don't seem strong enough for that sort of fighting. There are others out in the garden; a shiftry, bellossom, another eldegoss, and a few more besides, that are much stronger. He hasn't approached them directly yet, instead giving their food and water at a distance, sure that they'll be able to tell that he isn't Milo.

"I think they're just worn out from our new training regimen," he says. "Isn't that right?"

Chrys and Hendrix respond with convincing enough calls of affirmation. He can hardly tell his mother that they're in mourning.

"Hm. Still, you might want to take them to the pokémon center and make sure there isn't anything wrong with them."

"I'll do that."

And so he takes them to the pokémon center and marvels as they are put into a healing machine before they are examined by the nurse. If only he could just sit himself down on a table to recover whenever he felt sick out in the wild.

"Physically speaking, they're fine," says the nurse, petting Hendrix's cottony crown, "but they both seem knackered emotionally. Did anything happen recently that might have them made them unhappy?"

He sees Milo's corpse in his mind's eye. "Not that I can think of."

"Well, make sure they get plenty of rest and sunlight. Come back if they don't perk up."

He goes to the gym and passes the time playing with Chrys and Hendrix as his mother suggested. He finds it disturbing that they are so eager to play fetch with pokéballs, the very things that imprison them, but he hadn't brought anything else to use. They have to repeatedly assure him that they're all right with being returned to their pokéballs before he actually puts them inside.

The only other thing to do is train the wooloos and yampers that are used for the gym challenge. He mostly hangs back and observes the other trainers teaching the wooloos to roll opposite of the humans and yampers chasing them. They all look like they're having fun. His help is required to set up hay bales that weigh a lot more than they look like they do.

Once again, there aren't any challengers all day. He overhears the trainers employed at the gym discussing how most of them are towards the end of the challenge by now and they're getting close to the point of closing the gym for the season. That's good. He managed to scrape by his few days impersonating Milo without engaging in a pokémon battle and he'd like to keep it that way. The thought of telling pokémon to attack each other for fun makes him queasy. 

After “work,” such as it is, he walks outside of the stadium and feels an odd prickling in the back of his neck. He looks to one side and sees a pumpkaboo staring at him. He recalls what his brother said and shudders. The little fluorescent eyes follow him all the way out of Turffield. He all but sprints through the Galar Mine, avoiding contact with all of the pokémon and trainers within. His artificially constructed lungs burn by the time he reaches his destination. Milo hadn't built his strength with running in mind.

He hopes that the wide expanse of the wild area will be reassuring. It isn't. He feels as lost and small in his old home as he ever did. He doesn't even feel comfortable transforming back into his natural shape. The ditto changes into a xatu, then a haunter, then a linoone. None of them seem to fit. It tries a machoke, but it's so close to a human body it might as well be one. With a groan of frustration, it reverts to Milo. He rubs his forearm, wondering if he's getting too used to being like this. If he'll get stuck. 

By the time he finishes his aimless wandering, it's dark. Human eyes are terrible at seeing in these conditions. He considers trying to transform again, but he's stopped by the sight of another human.

He came out here to get away from them, but they're everywhere. This one is tall (but isn't everyone tall in comparison to him?) and heavy. Imposing if not for his relaxed stance. He doesn't know much about humans' sense of fashion, or clothes much at all, for that matter, but the man strikes him as overdressed for a tromp through the woods. Too many accessories. He's even wearing sunglasses at night.

His eyes adjust a little more to the dark and he makes out a large pokémon beside the man: a coalossal. He tenses. The pokémon doesn’t seem to recognize ‘Milo’ at all. It can't be the same one he encountered before. Fate wouldn't be that cruel. 

“Hey, Milo." The man salutes him with a grin. "Don’t see you out here too often. Take a look at this lad.” 

He pats one of the coalossal’s arms. The coalossal rumbles and smiles, at least as much as a coalossal can smile. He can't bring himself to smile back.

The man continues to gush about the coalossal, oblivious to his discomfort. “I take a little vacation down south and look what I find. I've only ever seen rolycoly in the mines and the occasional carkol. Never fully evolved. But I caught this monster wandering around here."

"Monster is right," he murmurs.

The man finally drags his attention away from the coalossal. "What's that?"

He puts on his fakest smile yet. "Sorry, I just remembered I need to water my gossifleurs. Goodbye." 

He needs to come up with a better excuse.

"Uh... bye. See you at the chairman's next gala thing."

He has no idea what that is. "See you then."

He can feel the man staring at him from behind his sunglasses as he leaves. 

So many people seem to know Milo. There's too much to keep track of. Why do human lives have to be so complicated?

He should go back to living here, in the wild area. Transform into a rock and sink to the bottom of North Lake Miloch and stay there forever.

He thinks of the coalossal and guilt floods through him all over again for what he let happen to Milo. He doesn't know how much his attempts to stand in for him are working, but he has to keep trying. It's the only way he can think of to atone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I offer you a Gordie ~~and plot-relevant coalossal~~ cameo in these trying times?
> 
> I thought I would struggle to work on this in addition to nanowrimo but I actually have two more chapters in progress for it as of right now. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I doodled some art with this fic in mind and you can find it [here](https://darksomeness.tumblr.com/post/634184767976407041/ditto-milo-ditto-milo-ditto-milo-im-writing-a-fic#notes) on tumblr.
> 
> YEAH I know Barry is a character in D&P but I thought it was way too cute not to use here.

He arrives home late that night and hungry enough to eat a mudsdale. What’s the use in being so strong if utilizing that strong form makes him so famished all the time?

He shovels cold leftovers into his mouth in front of the fridge before going to bed with a horrible stomachache that haunts him even when he shifts back into a ditto without a proper stomach. 

It probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. It sees the coalossal every time it closes its eyes.

The chores the next morning seem even more brutal than usual. His brother, whose name he manages to forget up until he hears his father calling out to him, picks up some of the slack. He gently shooshes wild pokémon away from the orchard, prunes and applies fertilizer to plants, and shears the wooloos’ wool, all more animatedly than ‘Milo’ can muster.

Barry. His name sounds more like a pokémon nickname than the dignified names given to Milo’s pokémon. Cutesy. He isn’t bad, as far as human young go. He isn’t old enough to have pokémon of his own yet. He’s devoted himself entirely to the farm.

'Milo' keeps getting distracted. The stark light of the distant geoglyph against the dark grass becoming less and less obvious. The sounds of night life dying away to be replaced with the business of day. His own breathing; broad, sweaty human chest expanding and contracting. In the wild he would usually be asleep somewhere at this hour, safely disguised as a rock or plant. 

Then he refocuses on where he is and sees that he's been troweling the same spot over and over. He can't even remember what he was doing it for. The earth is broken up into a jagged hole in front of him.

"You want to call it here, Milo?" Barry asks. "You'll need to get going to the gym soon, after all."

He wonders whether or not the boy noticed how mindless his attempt to work had become.

“Sounds good. Thanks for the help, sprout." He stands up and pats him atop his cap.

That’s something Milo would say, surely. The trainers at the gym act surprised when he doesn’t meet some unknown quota of plant-related references.

Barry beams at him, but the expression wavers and he looks away.

He lets his hand drop. “Something wrong?”

“It’s just... you never get tired this early in the morning.”

“I had a late night.” He has to stifle a yawn just thinking about it. “Gym leader duties.”

“With Nessa?”

“No?” Had Nessa been back in Turffield yesterday without him realizing?

“When you’re out really late sometimes, Mum and Dad say you’re doing gym business with her.”

Is that a euphemism? Were Nessa and Milo..? Oh. _Oh._ They were mates, and in more than the platonic sense of the word. Maybe the kiss should’ve tipped him off.

He clears his throat and says, “No, not with Nessa this time. It took longer than I thought it would. The... chairman wanted to discuss replacing the floodlights in the stadium.”

The man from last night mentioned a chairman, didn’t he? And the trainers in the gym regularly speak about the wasteful nature of the energy-sucking floodlights. The lie isn’t carefully-constructed, but it should work on a child.

Barry nods, but he doesn’t look reassured.

"Is there something else?" 'Milo' prods.

"I don't want you to be upset." 

"I won't be. Promise."

He takes a deep breath, but his voice still wobbles when he speaks. “Even when you get enough sleep, you’ve been acting right odd. All... cold. You won’t touch your tournament team. You’ve barely talked to me this week. Mum and Dad say it’s just harvest fever, but it isn’t harvest season. So what’s wrong? Are you going to get better?”

The child that had managed to stay chipper all morning through grueling chores suddenly has tears filling his big green eyes.

‘Milo’ drops to one knee so that he's on level with Barry, letting go of the trowel. A lot of human expressions take some concentration for him to read, but this one is obvious. Humans shed tears just like pokémon. He's been so careless; he didn't even care to remember what the child was named until this morning.

He touches him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, Barry. I... I can’t explain why I’ve been acting so strange.”

“Why not?” Barry wipes at the tears and snot on his face with his wrists, clearly embarrassed at his display of emotion but unable to stop.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

The kid would believe him if he reverted to his true form, but the drawbacks would be innumerable. The question of what’s wrong with the fake Milo will shift to where the real one is. Somehow he doesn't think "gone forever" will satisfy him.

“But I'll get better. I will."

He has to. It will only make everyone miserable if he doesn't.

Barry sniffles, looking dubiously at him, but rushes forward to hug him nonetheless. Just as he does when holding Chrys and Hendrix, 'Milo' is careful not to squeeze him too hard in his brawny arms.

Work has its own problems.

"For the last time, no!”

Hendrix puffs out his tiny cheeks and gives him a sing-song retort.

"I don't care how many times you've done it before. Dynamaxing is dangerous, and I won't... 'help' you do it, whatever that means." 

They've been having this conversation for what feels like forever. Sneaking away from the part of the stadium devoted to the gym challenge and onto the pitch had been at Hendrix's insistence, but 'Milo' never would have done it if he knew what he wanted. He can feel the energy beneath his feet, the so-called power spot.

He tugs at the towel wrapped around his neck. It feels like it's strangling him.

If there's anything he fears more than pokéballs, it's dynamaxing and gigantimaxing.

“Gwooo.”

"What do you mean you can control it? The particles will make you lose control. That’s what they do. No pokémon needs that much power. You saw what gigantimaxing did to—"

Hendrix cuts him off with a pointed shake of his head, sending seeds scattering.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't just bring him up every time I get upset with you." He crouches down and offers his hand, palm up.

Hendrix studies it for a moment, then butts his head against his fingers. 'Milo' exhales. He's forgiven.

Hendrix hesitates, then makes a burbling sound.

"What? What did you forget?"

The eldegoss hums and stares at his proffered wrist.

"Dynamax band?" He glances at his wrist and taps the band there. "This? I only have something that looks like it. I don't think it actually has any power.”

Hendrix seems to wilt. He turns away and makes a whistling sigh that only an eldegoss can. 

“Dynamaxing was something you did all the time with him?”

Hendrix chirps the affirmative in a subdued voice.

'Milo' rocks back on his heels. He can't imagine turning into a massive, power-mad version of himself on a regular basis, especially not at a human's behest. Just how special was Milo to have earned Hendrix's trust so thoroughly?

His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of a gym trainer on the pitch. His glasses almost fall off his face as he jogs up to him.

"Milo! We finally got a new challenger," says Samuel—or was it Emanuel—? "This one will probably be the last of the season. We'll sow the seeds of defeat in him for you."

It takes him a moment to understand what's been said. Eventually he stands and gives him a shaky thanks. The trainer beams and runs off to the gym challenge.

'Milo' dry swallows. Already an audience begins to file in to the stands. It's nowhere near as many humans as the stadium can hold at maximum capacity, but it's more than he's used to seeing all in one place. A good fraction must be from out of town. They're all staring at him. He recalls a time he got surrounded by a pack of zigzagoons so hungry they were willing to settle for amorphous goo as a meal. It took turning into an obstagoon to scare them off. If only that experience was applicable here.  


He startles when he feels something soft pressed to his leg. Hendrix rubs against one of his calves, trying to reassure him.

"Blooorooo," says the eldegoss.

"I'm okay. My fears aren't that deep-rooted." It's a lie and there aren't any humans around to appreciate the joke, but Hendrix's tiny smirk makes it worth the effort.


	4. Chapter 4

His posture is ramrod straight as he walks off of the pitch with Hendrix in his arms, hyper-aware of every human eye on him. There's still some time before the challenger makes it through the gym challenge. Once safely out of sight, he sets down Hendrix and transforms back into a ditto, a chance to "recharge" before going back out there. It wouldn't do to have a camera capture Milo's muscles drooping into slimy masses or his hat melting clean off if the ditto loses concentration.

Chrys and Hendrix's pokéballs roll off of it as it loses the pokéball holders on Milo's hips and the gossifleur is released. The ditto was bewildered when they requested being recaptured after their old pokéballs were destroyed. With the gym in mind, it makes more sense. It would be difficult to keep up appearances with what were effectively two wild pokémon in the gym.

The ditto addresses both of them with a burble. They need to talk strategy.

It asks Milo's pokémon why they only know three moves upon learning them. Hendrix, suddenly prickly at the perceived criticism of Milo's choices on how he raised them, asks why it only knows one. Touché. Chrys, more patient, explains that they only know three moves to take it easier on challengers. After all, Turffield Stadium is the first gym.

It already got the impression that they weren't very strong, but the revelation that this is, in fact, the first gym in the region clears up why they've been kept from getting stronger. The ditto can't help but wonder if Milo artificially held them back, preventing them from engaging in battles that would've made them more powerful than entry-level contenders. Maybe if they were a little tougher they could've defended him from his attacker and he'd still be here...

The ditto tries to outline a series of plans. It avoids battling all it can so it doesn't know how effective any of it will be. Still, it tries. If the challenger had such and such type, they could do this, if this type, this, if they were more vulnerable to special moves rather than physical—

Hendrix suggests with a whooshing noise that they just have fun, like Milo would want them to. Chrys bobs his head sagely, almost tipping over with the weight of his flower thrown forward.

What sense does that make? Isn't the goal of pokémon battles to win? It would feel horrible if it just let either pokémon faint without trying. That doesn't seem fun, anyway. The ditto keeps these thoughts to itself, though, wary of irritating Hendrix any further by implying Milo had it wrong not going all out. 

It returns the pair to their pokéballs and transforms once it catches sight of the challenger walking out on the pitch.

'Milo' adjusts his hat, arches his back to ensure that all of the artificial vertebrae are in place, takes a deep breath, and joins her there. The crowd goes wild at his arrival, and he musters up a smile and sidelong glance at a rotom camera.

The challenger is a child, only a bit older than Barry. She looks terribly shy and he can't imagine being swallowed up in his broad shadow helps matters.

"Hi." She looks at him, expectant, and he wonders if he's meant to say something back.

"Um. Best of luck." That doesn't feel very Milo-y. "Though I must warn you, I'm determined to mulch your pokémon up."

Annnd that was way too threatening. She looks even more intimidated than before.

Still, she nods. "I'll try my best."

With that, she turns away and walks to the other side of the pitch. He follows suit and releases Chrys. The challenger has a wooloo. Not surprising, he supposes.

Both gossifleur and eldegoss are slow as sap dripping down a tree, so he makes sure to have Chrys lead with a series of rapid spins to make him faster. The wooloo tackles, then growls, causing both Chrys and 'Milo' to shrink back.

He winces at each hit the little gossifleur takes. Every ounce of his self-control is utilized to stop him from running forward and snatching the flowering pokémon out of harm's way. How can humans stand to do this to the creatures they call friends? The challenger seems discomfited by her wooloo taking damage, too, but not nearly to the level that he is.

Chrys takes a moment to turn away from his opponent to murmur to 'Milo' that he needs to smile more.

"Gwoooor," he adds; it very clearly translates to, "Stop being so serious. Act casual," in Galarian terms.

Pretending to be Milo and engaging in a battle both at the same time is exhausting.

With a big grin, he asks, "Okay, my little gossifleur, how about we cultivate victory with magical leaf?"

"Bwooo!"—"Not that casual!" Still, Chrys obliges.

Then the wooloo manages to knock Chrys out with a particularly strong headbutt. His grip on his transformation starts to slip as he watches the little pokémon crumple to the turf. Poor thing hadn't done anything wrong. Not that any wrongdoing would justify being beaten half to death. This isn't the wild. The wooloo isn't going to eat the gossifleur to keep itself alive. So why are they fighting? For the entertainment of humans? For fun?

His bones and organs and muscles begin to jellify. His face and fingers will be next. Nothing can hold its shape under the stress.

It takes Hendrix's pokéball vibrating in its holder to snap him out of it. He literally pulls himself together with a grunt. Swallowing, he returns the unconscious Chrys to his ball before sending out Hendrix.

The crowd goes silent, almost like they're waiting for something. 'Milo' still trembles with the aftershocks of nearly losing his form and the quiet only makes him more nervous.

"What's going on?" He whispers out of the side of his mouth.

Hendrix answers simply: they expect him to dynamax. 

They can't do that! Either the fake band on his wrist will do nothing or it _will_ do something and he'll have a nervous breakdown over the sight of a giant, possibly-out-of-control eldegoss. Then 'gym leader Milo' will turn into a blob of a pokémon in front of all of these humans and who knows what will happen after that?

The wooloo and trainer seem confused at his hesitation. He has to press on.

"Okay, eldegoss. We should... till the soil with our... uh..." He's running out of farming- and grass-type-related wordplay by the moment. "Just use leafage, okay?"

There are murmurs of surprise from the crowd but he's determined to ignore them.

After Chrys' attacks, the wooloo doesn't seem like it can take much more. With Hendrix's attack, it's even weaker. One more rapid spin ought to do it. The thought of knocking the wooloo out sickens him almost as much as watching Chrys collapse had, but he's determined to win. That's what every pokémon trainer he’s ever seen has wanted. Milo can’t possibly be the exception to the rule.

Then the human child kneels down with a spritzer bottle. She sprays the contents carefully on the little cuts made by the onslaught of leaves on the wooloo's legs and face. The little sheep perks up at once and gives a defiant baa of a battle cry.

'Milo' gawks. Hendrix says it's a potion made by humans to heal pokémon. That can't be legal. He glances at the crowd. No one seems to think anything of it.

With renewed strength, the wooloo wears the eldegoss down. Commanding Hendrix to keep going just feels cruel. He rolls with the punches, or tackles as the case may be, with more ease than Chrys had, but it still takes it out of him. His attacks get weaker and weaker as time goes on.

But then there’s a stroke of luck—Hendrix lands a critical hit. The wooloo is back where it started, standing on shaky legs and out of breath. 

Logically, he knows it wasn't the pokémon's fault, but the sight of Chrys crumpling under the weight of his assault is still fresh in his mind, and the same will happen to Hendrix if this goes on any longer.

And so it's with an uncharacteristic edge to his soft voice that he orders, "Magical leaf. Let's put this wooloo out to pasture."

Hendrix hesitates, casting a glance back at him before laying into his opponent. The wooloo totters, then falls.

He waits for the challenger to release another pokémon. She doesn't.

Oh. It's over. They won. 'Milo' exhales.

The crowd seems at once delighted and confused, cheering and murmuring in equal parts. Does Milo really win so rarely? Or is it about the fact that the girl had one pokémon? How had she even made it past the gym trainers? He can only imagined it involved a lot of healing the wooloo with those potions.

Hendrix calls out that he needs to put him back in his pokéball and go 'shake on it' with the challenger, whatever that means.

The challenger meets him in the middle of the field. She looks at him expectantly, then holds out her hand. 'Milo' blinks down at her and reciprocates the motion, grasping her tiny arm at the wrist in what looks like the right thing to do. She appears terribly confused but copies him, though she's unable to wrap her small fingers all the way around his thick, sinewy wrist. She moves her arm up and down. Ah. That's the 'shake.' He smiles at her. Human gestures are bizarre.

The moment he can, he rushes out of Turffield Stadium and heads for the pokémon center, cradling Chrys' pokéball in his hands.

"I'm so sorry," he says, stroking the surface of the ball. "You'll be better soon."

Can he hear him? Probably not, but it makes him feel slightly better to act as if he does.

He becomes distantly aware of what sounds like another set of hurried footsteps. He glances to his left, then does a double take. An older man in a red jersey keeps pace beside him, jogging with much more ease than his own body allows.

"No dynamaxing this time," the man says, staring forward with a resolute expression as he runs. "Taking a page out of Piers' book, are you?"

He bites back a cry of frustration. Why in Arceus' name do so many people know Milo?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written pokémon fic a good handful of times but I think this might be the first time I've actually written a battle, aka the main game mechanic. Huh.


	5. Chapter 5

The man’s name is Kabu. Multiple people in the pokémon center greet him as such. ‘Milo’ barely notices, too consumed with standing in front of the counter waiting for Chrys and Hendrix to be returned to him in full health.

The moment the nurse hands the pokéballs back to him, he has to restrain himself from releasing them and scooping them up in his arms. Fainting gym pokemon is probably commonplace, especially with Milo's philosophy of taking it easy on challengers. It wouldn't do to get too emotional.

Only after both pokémon are back in his possession does he turn his attention to Kabu. The man is severe and determined-looking, face lined and hair greying; both indicators of age in a human, if he remembers right. Somehow he doesn’t think the weak lies he’s been spinning lately will work on him. He needs to tread carefully and say as little as possible.

"That was an unusual battle for you," Kabu says, turning away from the merchant off to one side in the center with several new pokéballs in hand.

"It didn't feel fair to dynamax against a little girl with only one pokémon. It would've been overkill."

Kabu hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He turns over one of the pokéballs before pocketing it and its mates. He begins to walk out of the center and the thing that looks like Milo follows after him because he gets the sense he's expected to.

Kabu walks outside with speed and bounciness that belie his stoic expression. Soon enough he's all-out jogging again. He's a different sort of strong than Milo's heavy muscle, all lithe and lean, used to this sort of exercise. 'Milo' has to suck in deep breaths and push his legs to the fullest to keep up. Without the urgency of healing his pokémon—no, no, Milo's pokémon. He doesn't know where that note of possession came from—he isn't as compelled to run. In some ways the short distance that they go is worse than when he'd run off to the wild area, partly because of Kabu's presence, partly because he doesn't know their destination.

They pass by a building with a fenced-in area just outside of town where he swears he sees another ditto for the barest moment. A sudden primal urge to transform and copy its default form, to out-ditto it, seizes him. But then he looks again and in the space he thought he'd seen a fellow purple blob there's a vulpix prancing over to another vulpix. He doesn't think he imagined that one of the pair is a ditto, but he tells himself he did just to fight the itch to transform with Kabu only feet away.

With an abruptness that almost causes 'Milo' to bowl the older man over, Kabu stops. They've reached a bridge with a cool breeze where the air smells sticky-sweet. He takes his hat off to keep it from being blown away. There's a city in the distance that he hadn't heard the humans give a name to yet and a large stretch of wild area. 

Kabu turns to him. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he gasps out, doubled over, almost adding 'sir' on the end out of instinct; the man just gives off that sort of aura. "I'm just not a big runner, you know. More about... these."

He holds up one of his arms and tries to remember what gesture humans do to flex the muscles most impressively. He can't remember so he just ends up holding it in the air limply.

"I wasn't talking about that," Kabu says, placing both of his hands on the balustrade of the bridge. “Milo, I came out here at Nessa’s request. To check on you.”

“Oh?” He straightens, then crosses and uncrosses his arms.

Kabu speaks with a measured staidness and a light trace of an accent that he can't place; not a Galarian one, anyway. 

“She had an appointment with her modeling and would be here herself if not for it. She insisted I come in her place if you had any matches. She’s worried about you. Said you were acting strange." He adjusts the position of the towel around his neck with one hand. "I see now what she means.”

‘Milo’ gulps and fiddles with his hat. An eldegoss floats by on the wind with a contented expression and he pretends to be engaged in looking at it.

“I’ve been... very tired lately, Kabu.”

“She said you’d say that.” He touches Milo's shoulder. “She cares for you deeply. As do I. You can trust us with anything."

The fatherly tone to Kabu's voice and the hand on him makes him have to resist squirming. He's so unused to all of this affection, all of this touch. At least 'shaking' with the challenger was brief. Hugging Barry had already pushed him pretty far outside of his comfort zone, but he had reassured himself at the time by thinking of the gossifleur and eldegoss he regularly hugged. There isn't a pokémon gesture similar to this one.

"Nessa is coming to see you this weekend if you'd rather tell her what's bothering you. She'll doubtless watch a recording of your match online and want to talk to you about that, too."

He and Kabu part ways a short time after that. 'Milo' doesn't look over at the fenced-in area on his way back home, not wanting to risk seeing the other ditto again, but he does copy the wave that the woman standing out front gives him.

His mother baked again today. She hands him four pecha berry muffins and kisses him on the cheek on his way into the house. Urk. Somehow it isn't as bad as the time with Nessa, but he still doesn't know that he likes it. He smiles at her and turns away. He focuses on eating a muffin to keep his face from distorting. The berries are still hot and meltingly sweet in the bread.

He recalls what Kabu said about Nessa watching a recording of a match. Milo's parents don't much care for any technology more complicated than an oven. That said, Barry has a rotom phone that 'Milo' asks to borrow.

"Hi, Milo! It'zzzzz been a while!" The rotom says when Barry holds out the smartphone.

"Just don't let him look at my journal," Barry says to it, prompting a slew of reassurances from the rotom.

'Milo' thanks him and, after handing Barry a muffin, escapes to his room. He sits on the edge of the bed and holds the phone between his hands. To say that he doesn't understand how the internet works would be a vast understatement. He saw trainers use their phones in the wild area a few times and watched with idle curiosity. He knows that it's a source of information and things like videos, but how to navigate it...

To his relief, the little pokémon doesn't ask any questions when 'Milo' asks it to show him some recordings of matches in Turffield Stadium from last season, no pressing on the screen required.

His heart sinks when he sees the real Milo. His eyes and smile are so bright, like he's really, actually happy, not just pretending for the sake of everyone else. The fake one grimaces. He's such a pale imitation. 

After pressing a few things, mostly by accident, he discovers he can make the video move faster or backwards or stop altogether. He stops the video on Milo's face and closely examines the arrangement of freckles on his face and the almost baby fat levels of chubbiness to his cheeks. He rearranges the cells in his face to match better, careful not to do anything too dramatic should he attract the attention of the rotom. He'd gotten such a quick look at Milo before he died, it was a wonder he'd had any level of accuracy at all. He should've done this before.

He hesitates, then skips to a point where Milo is holding his left hand out to command his pokémon. They're a bit blurry thanks to the motion taking place, but he can pick out some pale scars, all raised, especially a prominent one on his thumb.

He copies them all. He peels the wrapper off of another muffin, shoves the whole thing in his mouth, and flips his hand over as he chews. He doesn't know what the flapple bite mark would look like, this video is too far back for that, but he takes a guess and sinks a triangular shape into his palm.

'Milo' swallows the muffin and examines his work, flexing his newly-scarred hand, watching the tendons move under the skin. He'll just tell Nessa she imagined that they were gone before. He had them all along.

He wonders what other small details a mate would notice were off. Especially if she tried to take things further than kissing.

The amount of body hair he has or doesn't have. The color and size of his nipples (humans have those, right? Two of them? The females nurse their young with them, just like a select few pokémon, but on the males they're typically less prominent. He thinks he remembers hearing that from a miltank at some point). And... 

He glances at the apex of his thighs. He definitely won't be able to ask rotom to see if there are any pictures of _that_ online without raising suspicion.

Doesn't matter. He'll never let things get that far with her. The very thought of that much human intimacy, of human sex, makes him want to melt away into nothing.

He wonders if the match from today is already available online. Turns out it is. According to the rotom, it was uploaded only minutes after he left the stadium.

He realises what Kabu referred to when he said that the match was unusual almost at once. It wasn't just the lack of dynamaxing or the fact that he won. For most of the beginning, 'Milo's' mouth is set in a harsh line. Even when he smiles, it doesn't reach his beady eyes. As he gestures to Chrys to tell him to attack, his arm shakes. He hadn't even noticed he was doing that. After Chrys faints, he looks incredibly ill, like he's about to follow suit and faint, too.

The contrast to the real Milo, strong and confident and cheerful, couldn't be more obvious. 

It's too painful to watch himself continue to mess up after a couple of minutes, so he pauses it and tries to think of something else to do before he gives the rotom phone back to Barry. He asks rotom a few questions that seem to confuse the pokémon, but it answers nonetheless.

Both Kabu and Nessa are also gym leaders. Suddenly a lot of things click into place. Of course they are. Their jerseys should've made it obvious, but there are so many trainers waltzing around in imitation outfits that he hadn't immediately put it together. Asking rotom to display pictures of all of Galar's gym leaders reveals the man who he had seen the night before with the coalossal is also one. 

He can't read the text that he presumes says their names—human speech is within his grasp but the written language isn't—and it might be a bit odd to ask the rotom to read them. Still, he looks closely at each face, trying to commit them to memory so that he won't be so surprised the next time someone approaches him with a co-worker's familiarity. His eyes keep being drawn back to Nessa's intense stare. Her eyes are a deep, oceanic blue, the sort one could drown in.

After a bit of hesitation, he asks the rotom to pull up some of her matches.

She has a flair for the dramatic, kicking one of her long legs up in the air every time she throws a pokéball. She looks truly aggravated when she loses and self-assured and even the slightest bit smug when she wins. Her gym uniform shows off her bare legs and stomach and arms in a way the street clothes he'd seen her in didn't. Like Kabu, she's more leanly muscled than Milo. 

He eats his last muffin slowly. He doesn't know why he's tormenting himself by looking at videos of her, building the anticipation of her coming back to Turffield. Some part of him hopes that he'll be less intimidated by the prospect if he gets used to her, but he never really does. 

He almost chokes on his food when the rotom starts letting out a loud, jingling tone. 

"Do you want to anzzzzwer? It'zzzzz Nezzzzza."

What's Nessa? The ringing? 

"Um, yes?"

Her voice is projected from the smartphone: "Barry, it's Nessa. Can you put Milo on?"

"Oh, uh, I'm Milo. I'm... on."

He fuzzily remembers seeing trainers talk to their phones, but he had always assumed it was to the rotom, not to another human through the rotom. Technology is strange.

"Oh, hey. I've only got a second to talk, but I wanted to tell you I'm coming to see you on Saturday. Let's do dinner at seven. We can get your favorite at the cafe." She pauses. "Kabu probably already told you, but I'm worried about you." 

"Don't be. I'm fine."

"Don't try to fool me," she snaps, causing him to flinch—he's done nothing but try to fool her and everyone else—then she says with less venom, "You're not just my boyfriend. You're my rival, like it or not. I know you better than anyone and I can't let anything happen to you. Who else am I gonna work to beat?"

"Yeah. Of course. We've always been the best rivals."

There's a long silence that he doesn't know how to interpret. Had he said something wrong?

"...right. I've gotta go. Love you, Mi."

This one's easy, his family has recited it to each other a half dozen times in the short time he's been here: "Love you, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the dex if a ditto sees another ditto it'll try to copy it really quickly. Took a lot of self-restraint for our protagonist not to do that.
> 
> Also BIG OOPS ON RECIPROCATING THE RIVALRY, BUDDY.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight addendum to the last chapter, I casually mentioned a café originally when what I meant was a cafe. From what my ignorant Yank self understands a British-style cafe is more geared towards convenience/breakfasty food while a café is, like, a restaurant that's sometimes a coffeehouse. This little chapter doesn't even actually get to the cafe yet, so—yeah I'm just fussy about silly little details.
> 
> For now, more sad stuff!

The ditto realises in a detached sort of way the next morning that it went to sleep in human form and woken up back in its usual state. It had probably only changed back once it fell unconscious. In the wild it would've slept the whole night through as a rock to keep itself safe, but it's become lax with the habit here where shelter and warmth and food are so constant.

After morning chores, 'Milo' takes his first day off from the gym to go out to the wild area with Chrys and Hendrix. The moment that they're in tree cover, he sets them down and melts into its natural form. It knows it should probably let itself have a break from so many transformations in the past week, but it's thrumming with energy and wants to turn into something less stressful than being Milo or itself. A grass type would be fun to do alongside the other pokémon.

After a moment's contemplation, the ditto turns into a bounsweet. She spins in a little circle around Chrys and Hendrix, giggling merrily. This is a nice change of pace, a tiny and unassuming pokémon instead of a celebrity with too many coworkers to keep track of. She toddles off in a random direction and calls for them to follow.

As it turns out, Chrys and Hendrix are still incredibly slow, so she does a lot of backtracking and dancing around them as they talk.

She asks them to tell her everything they can about Milo. She needs to know as much as possible so that meeting with Nessa tomorrow won't go awry. Hendrix corrects her; it's not just some meeting, it's a date. The bounsweet almost falls over. Is it? The sort that humans go on when they've got romantic engagements? Then she's going to need even more help.

She notices almost at once that they talk about Milo in the present tense, as if he's still here. She doesn't correct them.

His favorite color is not green but, in fact, yellow, because he likes sunshine and butter and the flower on top of gossifleurs' heads.

He doesn't like to travel much, but when he does he'll go to the Isle of Armor and lounge on the beach relishing in the sun and rain in turns, just like a plant.

He loves cheese toasties. He gets them at Turffield's sole cafe almost every time he goes on a date there with Nessa. It's reserved for that particular special occasion because it's horribly greasy. He gets garden salad and apples to go along with it.

Hendrix comments offhandedly that it's a good thing Milo doesn't especially like meat dishes, getting all of the protein that builds his muscle through other sources, or 'Milo' might have to eat something that doesn't agree with him.

The bounsweet says nothing. She isn't proud of it, but sometimes turning into a predatory pokémon and feeding on others was the only option during some leaner times. The few occasions she's hunted haunt her—she knew what it was like to be her prey, she'd worn their forms.

On the topic of food, Chrys adds that Milo is allergic to a few different types of berries; he can't remember which, it's been so long since either of them have even seen them since his family doesn't grow them. He does enough hard labor to work off all of the berry-filled baked goods his mother is so fond of making.

He's also allergic to pollen, of all things. His eyes itch and he sneezes when he's around too much of it, but he toughs it out to be with his pokémon. 

The details start to get more disjointed as time goes on, with Chrys and Hendrix so caught up in reminiscing about Milo they forget the practical purpose of talking about him.

His sunhats are all locally made, spring is his favorite season, he prefers berry-flavored pop to cola-flavored if he drinks it at all, and, and, and—

The bounsweet listens closely, trying to take all of the information in. No living being can really be summed up in the space of a day and the gossifleur and eldegoss sound like they could talk about him forever. She tries to narrow it down by asking about Nessa and Milo's relationship. 

Chrys perks up. He is, as it turns out, a huge romantic, and gets swept away at once in all but singing about them. The bounsweet gets the sense that he had heard all of it secondhand, but he's no less enthusiastic.

Nessa and Milo met during their gym challenge. She challenged him to a battle and he won, mostly because they were at the level where type specialty determined the outcome of a battle more than skill or strategy. She declared that she would battle him as many times as it took to beat him, but the claim was made with good intentions. The same couldn't be said for everyone else in the gym challenge.

He got bullied by some of the other challengers for being small and for his love of flowers. He hadn't yet grown into an intimidatingly muscle-bound man—in fact he was scrawny—that would have deterred such heckling. He allowed it to happen, only ever fighting back if they picked on his then-gossifleur now-eldegoss Thallo. 

She's his tournament-level eldegoss now, Hendrix adds with a touch of admiration.

On one such occasion with the bullies one of poor Thallo's petals were cruelly plucked off. Milo was to the point of throwing punches over it, driven outside of his usual mild nature.

Nessa was even more furious. She beat up the aggressors as her chewtle bit their ankles. 

They nearly got disqualified from the challenge over it, as they were the ones that ended up doing the most damage, but there were enough witnesses that it was clear who the real initiators of the conflict were.

All she asked for in exchange for helping him was one of the flowers from a bouquet he made from flowers in the wild area. He tucked a wildflower behind her ear and gave her a big hug. 

They had only started officially dating a year or so ago, but, Chrys whispers, they were in love with each other since they were children, he just knows it. He beams as he says as much, but then looks intensely wistful.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, I had this chapter all written and ready to go WEEKS ago, like, before a bunch of the other chapters were written, but then I got to this point and just... scrapped it and rewrote the whole thing and part of the next one which is why it took a bit. Hope my efforts paid off in the final product. Enjoyyy.

Even armed with his new knowledge about Milo, 'Milo' is convinced that seeing Nessa again will be a disaster. As it turns out, the dinner date itself isn't, but what follows is.

The cafe is no larger than a pokémon center, but it's crammed with Turffieldian farmers, all looking and smelling like they'd spent all day in the fields. Nessa looks out of place among them, far too done-up. The table is old and marked up with carvings imitating flowers and pokémon and the geoglyphs outside. It's clean enough and decorated with a small floral centerpiece to promote the florist next door. She scoots the vase out of the way when he sits down so they can see each other proper.

She looks him over critically, then smiles a little. "You seem a lot less nervy today. Feeling better?"

He's absolutely not calm on the inside, but he's glad he manages to seem composed outwardly. "Yeah. Yeah, much."

"I'm glad. Hate to say it, but I was a bit scared. You looked almost... gaunt about the face. Thought you might be really ill or something, you were acting so odd on top of it." She's echoing the same sentiments that Milo's parents and Barry had about thinking he was sick. "You work too hard, you know?"

"I know. I'm sorry."

She asks how Kabu had been when he'd seen him and about the last match of the season. He avoids going into too much detail and definitely doesn't mention the lack of dynamaxing, but he can see that she's surprised nonetheless when he mentions that the challenger lost. In turn, she tells him about her most recent battles and photo shoot. A lot of the terminology related to the latter goes right over his head, but he smiles and nods along.

"—and I told my agent to quit booking me so often when it's my season at the gym, but you know how she is. Always finding some great job I can't refuse. Good problem to have, I suppose." She takes a long sip of water. "Do you ever feel like you have to choose between being a gym leader and helping your family with the farm?"

He's so badly equipped to answer this question. He's only been doing both jobs for a short while, particularly the gym leader part.

"I think that there can be balance with everything," he says, noncommittal. 

Nessa hums. "Guess I should've expected the idealistic answer from you. I want the same. But if you were forced to choose..?"

He thinks carefully about what Milo would say. "My family would come first."

She nods. 

"Too bad I didn't get any skin in the fishing or market vendor game like my parents. Then this might be a little more cut-and-dry." He thinks she's probably joking, but he isn't sure.

There's something else that she wants to say, or rather, something she wants to ask. He can see it in the tension in her shoulders. When it finally comes out it's a forced sort of casual.

"What made you finally admit it?" She does an unconvincing job of pretending to examine the vase of flowers, then looks directly at him.

"Admit what?"

He tries to focus down at his food to avoid eye contact, effectively hiding beneath the brim of his hat. He's never tasted cheese before and he finds that he likes it, at least in this sandwich form. It's greasy, as promised. The bread is buttery and the slightest bit browned. He spends a long while just savoring the first half. The salad was differently but equally tasty in the freshness of the leaves and berries (which he hoped very much he didn't need to pretend to be allergic to; based on Nessa's non-reaction to seeing them, he didn't) sprinkled in. He ate that and an apple first while waiting for the hot food.

She draws his attention to her again by nudging him in the calf with her shoe. Then once he looks up she takes half of his cheese toastie and bites off one corner daintily. She'd finished her own small plate of grilled tomatoes just before.

"What made you admit that you're my rival, Mi?" She asks, a little more firmly, gesturing with the toastie. "That we've 'always been the best rivals?'" 

Just how loaded is that word to her? He puts his food down and swallows.

"I, ah, I knew it all along." He smiles and gropes for a detail to add, hoping it will add to the legitimacy. "Ever since we were kids."

"Brilliant. Just brilliant." She sits back with an exasperated sigh and returns the half of the toastie sans the corner to his plate with a toss. "And you just felt like drawing the suspense out all this time? Did Rose put you up to it?"

Why hadn't Milo said it if it means so much to her? He can only wonder. It sounds important to Nessa, like the humans' 'I love you' ritual but even deeper. He'd made quite a misstep by accidentally saying something so meaningful to her without knowing the connotations.

"Couldn't you have at least said it out on the pitch instead of over the phone? Or just... any time in person?" She sighs again and shakes her head as if to shake the thought off. "Well, regardless, it means a lot. They'll have to update my league card to reflect your change of heart. Maybe I can have a new one altogether printed. With both of us. That'd be quite a way to finally show the public we're together, eh?"

He has no idea what a league card is. "I'd like that."

She puts her her hand over where his left hand rests on the table. Her brows rankle a little bit at the sight and feel of the most prominent scars that he'd meticulously copied. She's confused, that much is obvious. He can all but see her replaying the last time she'd seen his hand sans scars in her head.

Again, he can tell the question is on the tip of her tongue.

He puts his other hand on top of hers in an attempt at a distraction. 'Milo's' huge, gloved hand swallows up Nessa's. The contact on his fingertips and bare hand to hers underneath feels so uncomfortable, prickling and burning, but it makes her happy. That's what all of this lying and deception is for, right? To make everyone happy? Milo's pokémon wouldn't help him as much as they have otherwise. He won't hurt this human if he keeps up the act, right? Right?

Nessa continues to stare down at their hands. He's glad she doesn't ask anything about the hand hidden by his trainer glove. If Milo had any scarring there, he isn't aware of it. She seems lost in thought.

"Do you remember when we first held hands?" She asks, uncharacteristically soft. "On the train to Wyndon?"

"Yeah, I do," he says even though of course he doesn't.

"You were so nervous. And sweaty." She smiles and squeezes his hand. "It was adorable. You're adorable."

All in all, the date goes well. Maybe a little too well, because mere moments after they're outside she's kissing him. Not a little on-the-cheek kiss, either. No, her mouth is on his mouth. For an extended period of time. And she licks him and sucks on his lower lip like she wants to eat him. 

Is this a thing humans do? This is unlike any kiss he'd ever seen in passing in the wild area.

He stays near-frozen throughout for fear that if he moves too much his disguise will come apart.

It's one thing to appreciate Nessa's strength and beauty and give her little touches on the hand. It's another to have her bearing down on him very much under the impression that he's her human boyfriend and not an impostor pokémon.

She draws away, but only by a bit. "Come back home with me. Stay the night. I've got this trite romcom you'll just love."

She pulls his hat off and smooths his bangs out of his eyes. 

"Nessa..." He trails off, not sure what he had intended to say.

Her hand slides from his forehead to his cheek and then down his wrapped-up neck to where his heart feels like it's about to explode out of his chest. Or, more likely, melt into purple goo.

She gives him a searching look. "We could watch something else. No horror, I promise."

"That’s... good?”

"Or we could just snog." She squeezes his left pectoral in her hand. "Maybe more, if you're up for it."

“I. Um.”

She puts his hat back on his head and pulls away. "If you're not in the mood, say so."

“Not... not tonight.”

Why did he have to say it like that? That leaves some open, empty promise for the future.

"You good?" She rubs his shoulder. "You're all stiff. You act like we've never kissed before." 

There's that doubt again, that very justifiable worry that there's something wrong with him.

'Milo' scrunches his eyes shut, gets up on his toes, and gives her a little kiss on the cheek in a last-ditch attempt at reassuring her. It's forced but at least it's less sloppy than what she'd been doing to him just before. 

"I'm fine. Really. Please don't worry anymore." He takes a half-step back. "I need to go—"

"—'water your gossifleurs?' Like you told Gordie and I the other times you wanted to run off lately? Might as well say you need to wash your hair." She crosses her arms. "It's a weak exit strategy, babe."

He almost asks who Gordie is, then thinks better of it. "I... well..."

"Just 'goodbye' will do," she says, tossing a piece of her hair over her shoulder.

She seems irritated, but there's not much more he can do to change that. He'll probably only make things worse if he stays.

"Goodbye, Nessa."

"See you, Mi." 

The exchange of 'I love you's is noticeably absent, but he's probably the one to blame for that since he didn't say it first. She ends up calling it after him anyway as he walks away and he dutifully responds in kind. It starts to set in that he doesn't even really know what it means. 

The walk back his home—odd that's he's started to think of it that way—feels longer than usual. The darkness of a moonless evening is stifling. 'Milo' stares down at his boots as he puts one foot in front of the other. He considers releasing Chrys and Hendrix from their pokéballs to tell them how it went, but second-guesses himself. What would he even say? 'It was going great until it wasn't.'

He's known from the start this isn't sustainable, and nowhere is that clearer than with Milo's girlfriend. She's going to find out. She's got to find out. And when she does she and everyone else close to him are going to be so much more upset than if they'd learned the simple truth that the man they care so deeply for has been dead for a week. Not sick, not acting strange, _dead_ , burned alive, and replaced with an inadequate impostor.

He never intended for things to go this far. It was supposed to be simple, he just wanted to get Milo's gossifleur and eldegoss back home, but then he'd been seen and—

'Milo' is so lost in thought he doesn't realise the ill-advised route he's taking. Dimly he registers the floral scent that permeates Turffield getting stronger. When he finally looks up, he's smack in the middle of Milo's garden, surrounded by the tournament-level pokémon he'd been so carefully avoiding up 'til now.


	8. Chapter 8

The garden is beautiful to behold even in the darkness, looking at once manicured with its uniformity and overgrown thanks to the sheer size of the plants. 'Milo' might appreciate it more if he wasn't so worried about the pokémon within it.

The shy bellossom and cherrim blend into the greenery and flora more than the crafty-looking shiftry or the merry ludicolo. Their reactions to seeing him are all the same, though—exclamations of joy and concern as they move towards him.

And why wouldn't they act that way? Milo's been absent for days.

He's shaking, which only brings them closer more quickly. Are they trying to comfort him or do they realise something is off about him? Either prospect isn't great.

He takes a step backward and trips over something. He lands hard on his back and gets the wind knocked out of him. He sits up slowly, trying to suck in breaths as he rubs the base of his back.

Turns out he'd tripped over an appletun that now lifts up its eye stalks to give him an apologetic look.

A flapple springs out of the bushes with a loud cry and dive bombs his chest. The other pokémon take that as a cue to run over and group hug him. They're practically smothering him with cuddles. Fur and leaves and petals all tickle at him.

They each chorus about how the fall looked like it hurt and give the appletun that settles itself on top of his thigh dirty looks. The appletun just snorts through his nose and lets his tongue droop contentedly out of his mouth as he sets his head down on his leg.

"I'm fine. Really, I'm alright."

He starts to pull the bellossom off of his lap, but that just leaves more room for the cherrim and flapple to snuggle into his middle. The shiftry and ludicolo both have their arms looped around his upper half.

There's a low call and an eldegoss slowly emerges partway from a hollow in the rambling rosebushes, too. Thallo, he presumes. She gives him a look that makes it feel like she's staring into his very soul.

Much like Hendrix, he can feel a wizened skepticism coming off of her that separates her from the other pokémon that are too overjoyed to see him to realise how he's acting. Not to mention by the sound of things she's one of Milo's oldest pokémon.

'Milo' forces himself to look away from her and concentrate on the problem at hand: getting Milo's cuddly pokémon off of him. It's about as effective as it was before.

It's one thing to cuddle with Chrys and Hendrix or have Milo's friends and family touch him in short bursts. This is just overwhelming and guilt niggles at him for knowing who all this affection is really for.

"I know you missed me," he says to the pokémon, "but... ah... I need you to let me alone."

He doesn't want any more touching. He's been touched more by humans and pokémon alike in the past week than he has in his whole life and it's too much.

The pokémon all grumble and hug him even tighter. Are they overwhelmed by affection or are they just badly trained? Was Milo so much of a pushover that they won't listen to him when he gives direct instructions? Or maybe it's not Milo that's to blame. Maybe it's him. 

His skin feels like it's burning. If he didn't know any better he'd say he's having an allergic reaction to the pollen like the real Milo would. 

"Please. Please get off of me."

The soft plea seems to finally get through to them. Slowly, reluctantly, all of them back off, making mixed cries of confusion and sadness. They stay close, though, as if hoping he'll change his mind.

They listened. They actually listened to him. 'Milo' makes the mistake of letting out a relieved noise that's part sigh and part laugh. It's the latter part that sticks in his throat. His eyes go wide. All those close calls and it happens now. Keeping a straight face during a transformation is a matter of survival. Something about the motion that accompanies laughter—or maybe it's just the feeling, the carefree release laughter brings—causes his disguise to come apart. Like his body forgot what it was supposed to look like.

And just like that, it's a ditto.

The pokémon all startle and stare. For a long moment there's silence. If it had a proper stomach instead of absorbing its food into itself the ditto probably have thrown up its dinner. It knows it should flee or free Chrys and Hendrix from the pokéballs that had rolled onto the grass a few steps away so they can explain or just... anything other than just lay there being a literal blob.

The flapple breaks the quiet, crying out the question that the ditto is sure they're all thinking—where's Milo? The 'real, authentic, not-ditto' descriptors are all implicit.

The ditto opens its mouth to answer, then closes it. There's no good answer to that. It starts to back away.

The other questions come from all of the pokémon in a barrage: 

How long has the ditto been imitating their trainer? Is this why he's been avoiding them? Where is Milo? (They ask that one again and again.) Is he okay?

Too long, yes, in the bottom of a den, no—it doesn't say any of these things. It's like it's forgotten how to speak. Is this a panic attack? It feels like a panic attack. It retreats even further.

All of them are showing signs of upset and unhappiness unique to their species and typing, rustling their leaves and petals. Even the easygoing appletun looks distressed, bellowing and snorting and shifting his feet. Thallo the eldegoss continues to watch on from the shadows with an unreadable expression. Somehow the ditto thinks she was onto it from the start.

The shiftry steps forward, away from the group, and spreads its fanned arms, menacing. He apparently realised they aren't getting any answers with direct questioning. The others look surprised at the aggressive stance he's taking and murmur amongst themselves, but it does nothing to discourage him.

The ditto lets out a wordless burble of fear. In trying to run away it distanced itself even further from the pokéballs holding its only friends in this situation. And, it recognises belatedly, it's backed itself into a corner, a thick metal trellis covered in vines on one side and a thorny bush against its back. With the darkness of the night it can't even see where it had originally entered this section of the garden.

The pokémon that had been hugging it just moments ago advances, teeth grit, clearly readying an attack.

And the ditto continues to do what it's been doing from the moment it lost hold of its disguise: it panics. It transforms into an arcanine and lets out a bark punctuated with embers flying from between his jaws. Even with all of their strength, a type disadvantage can humble them. Most of the pokémon draw back, including the shiftry. He growls and snaps his teeth together. They all look terrified... save for one. Emboldened by the shiftry's display of aggression, the ludicolo dances forward to confront the arcanine.

The arcanine barks and glances for a way out again, reluctant to actually attack. His newfound size makes it so that the space in the garden seems confining and near-unnavigable. He should have turned into a flying type or bug type so he could scare them all off and make a quicker escape. A big, scary fire type had seemed like a no-brainer in his stressed state despite seeing the ludicolo right there.

Stupid, stupid—!

The very idea of trying to transform again makes him queasy. To make matters worse, the ludicolo is joined by a drednaw in the signature burst of light from a pokéball. The arcanine looks up and locks eyes with Nessa, who stands in front of a thick cluster of hardy geraniums. Gone is the tender look that she'd been giving 'Milo.' It's been replaced with something vengeful.

She followed him? Did she feel bad about how they parted? Had she seen—?

“Use liquidation," Nessa commands the drednaw, throwing out her hand.

The arcanine whines and staggers back as he's hit with a gush of water. His fur is at once soaked and heavy with liquid, restricting his movements. On top of that, it hurts. He’s never been good at fighting. His tactic is intimidating other pokémon into leaving him be, but he can't even seem to do that anymore. The thought of actually trying to set any of the pokemon cowering behind the water types on fire is sickening.

Nessa doesn't have any such reservations. "Ludicolo, waterfall."

The ludicolo appears conflicted about receiving orders from a trainer other than his own for only a moment before attacking the arcanine. Again, it's super effective. In two moves he's weakened to the point of losing his tenuous grasp on the transformation, near to falling unconscious. Unable to think to do much else, it lets out a roar attack that succeeds in getting the ludicolo, at least, to back down.

"Nessa? What's going on?" The arcanine can't register Barry as more than a greenish blur among other greenish blurs in the garden, but his ears prick up at the sound of the child's voice.

"Stay back," Nessa warns; the arcanine can't tell if it's addressed towards him or Milo's brother. 

If she'd seen the transformation from ditto to arcanine, much less Milo to ditto, she isn't letting on.

"Arcanines are fast," she continues, "we have to be careful."

She's right, they are fast. Too bad this environment and now-soggy fur coat severely handicaps his ability to run. He could burn the greenery around it to clear a path, in fact he probably should burn it... but he's done enough damage to Milo's pokémon by revealing himself without ruining their home on top of it.

The opportunity to do so is torn away from him anyway by Nessa's next command to her drednaw—"Finish it off with crunch!"

And just like that, with speed belying its ponderous size, the drednaw's jaws are at his throat. There's little fanfare to the defeat. The arcanine whines again, wheezes, and collapses. The drednaw lets go and takes a half-step back, growling to herself.

He thinks he sees Nessa crouch down in front of him, but it could very well be his imagination.

The ditto vaguely registers that it's back in its default form before it blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the uninformed, yes, a ditto canonically loses its transformation if it laughs. What an inconvenient, restrictive thing to have to be conscious of. :(


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild update appears!

The ditto managed to avoid fainting in most situations between its usual scare tactics and the good old "run away" standby. Sleep is the usual way that it sinks into unconsciousness, disguised as an inconspicuous item so nothing will bother it. 

It tends to dream when it's stressed. Lately the exhaustion of holding a transformation for hours on end exhausted it too much and its nights were blessedly blank. But now, almost at once after it jellifies in the grass, it finds itself dreaming. Nightmare...ing. Well. It's not really any of those things. It's more a repressed memory made whole and real and put in the forefront of the ditto’s mind again. Unconscious as it is, it can't hope to escape.

The night Gym Leader Milo dies—died—it's so hard to keep track of when it happened when it seems to be happening all over again—is calm at first. Deceptively so. The air is cool and clear. A cruelly peaceful setting for what’s about to transpire.

There’s a single human, a trainer, looking at once strong to a frightening degree and gentle, too gentle. Even then the ditto can sense something about the human that fills it with a sense of longing. 

The trainer doesn’t seem interested in catching or fighting anything. He, a gossifleur, and an eldegoss are out picking berries in the middle of the night, the best time to avoid skowvets and greedents that would fight them otherwise. The ditto watches from a distance, contemplating transforming into something cute and running up to them to see if it can induce them to share.

The trainer seems kind, speaking softly but proudly to the gossifleur and eldegoss. The two pokémon adore him, abandoning the berries they pile up on the ground to butt their tiny faces against his ankles. They coo in delight as he laughingly crouches down to pet them. He lifts them each up to the tree branches to get at the berries, rocking forward onto his toes so they can reach.

Transforming might not even be necessary with that sort of human, but the ditto is always wary of the creatures with the power to entrap it. It hesitates a little while longer. It starts to approach, trying to decide on what pokémon would appeal most to the group.

The gigantimaxed coalossal seems to come from nowhere. The night sky is empty one moment, then it’s full of liquid fire and an earth-shaking roar. The ditto turns into a rock, terrified. It’s seen artificially huge pokémon before, but never so close. The sight of pokémon driven mad with power none of them, not even the humans, truly understand, is something reserved for far-off spectating. Gigantimaxed pokémon belong in their deep dens and the humans' stadiums. Not here, in the wild area's peaceful forest.

As if in answer to the thought, the ditto sees the break in the earth that the coalossal must have emerged from. The entrance to a den. Humans let their young go down there. Are they confident in the children's abilities or do they doubt the strength of the monsters within?

The ditto looks back down and sees that the trainer and the pair of pokémon both slid halfway into the den. The trainer wears an expression that even with its limited knowledge of humans it recognizes as one of pain; one of his strong legs is bent at an angle, rendered useless by the fall.

The pokémon in the coalossal’s way are weak to the giant pokémon in every sense of the word. The trainer is strong, but not that strong. He tries to get away, scooping the gossifleur and eldegoss up in one arm and beginning to scramble up the broken sod. There is no time to return them safely to their pokéballs. It's slow-going. It's not enough. They're slipping deeper into the pit.

Maybe simply falling down it would have been a mercy. Just as abruptly as it appeared, the coalossal attacks.

The ditto can't bear to watch, but it still hears. Most of the time, humans sound nothing like pokémon, but the screams of death transcend species.

The air is thick with the smells of charred berries and grass and flesh most of all. What remains of the trainer, what hasn’t been incinerated, lays on his front. He managed to protect the two pokémon but not himself.

They struggle out from under him and touch his burnt body with their leaves. Their own screams are melodic but no less haunting.

The eldegoss shakes off some of his seeds and tries to feed the trainer one, then goes for a rawst berry. He pushes both desperately at the trainer’s slack mouth, crying out in anguish when he doesn’t, can’t, accept the offerings.

The gossifleur cries out at the coalossal that had begun to walk away the moment the trainer fell. The monstrous volcano pays him no attention. The pokémon is so out of its mind there's no notice paid to what just transpired.

The ditto transforms back into its default shape. It knows it just witnessed a tragedy. A gentle human cut down by a typically gentle pokémon. There had been no provocation, no disrespect shown to one of Galar's mines, nothing. The coalossal didn't even seem to regard him as prey.

It starts to edge closer, pauses, then gets closer still. The ditto frets about the possibility of the coalossal coming back to finish the gossifleur and eldegoss off. They both move at a painfully slow speed. The air is still, eliminating the possibility of the latter floating through the air on the wind. They aren't from here and they won't be able to get back home anytime soon, especially not if they stay by the human's body.

They need to be carried the way that their trainer held them. It wishes it could help. If only it had strong arms instead of its pseudopods... 

The ditto transforms into a maractus, sure that a fellow grass type will appeal to them. It calls out softly, urging them to come over. They pay the both the change and the call no mind. Maybe the spikes aren't appropriate. Nuzleaf yields similar results. It's running out of grass type pokémon that have strong arms that it can think of. Not that that strategy seems to be working, anyway. A gourgeist probably won't be any more appealing.

The only thing they seem to be interested in is their deceased trainer. 

The ditto considers for a moment, then stretches itself out, forming the basic shape of a human. It tries its best to recall what the trainer looked like before the coalossal burned him. 

He takes a breath and a wobbly step forward. This sort of form always feels strange. Rarely does the ditto have the reason or opportunity to transform into a machoke or gardevoir or anything so humanoid. 

The ditto clears his newly-formed throat and speaks using the human words he knows he's capable of now. "Come on. We can't be out here all night. You'll catch cold."

The ditto only had a few minutes to hear the human's voice, to catch onto his personality. Still, the imitation is convincing.

For a while they still refuse to come. The ditto almost gives up, letting cells start to shift into their natural state, when the gossifleur turns to him. The little pokémon starts to hop over. The eldegoss calls out sharply. 

The ditto kneels down, offering a hand to gossifleur. He hops into his palm. Tiny leaves on the gossifleur's stem wrap around his thumb for support. He peeks up at him from beneath the yellow flower petals with sad eyes. The eldegoss shakes his head and presses his face to his trainer's side, keening. 

"I just want to help you." The ditto reaches out with his free hand, hesitates, then strokes the back of the eldegoss' soft crown. "I know I can't replace him, but you can pretend. Just for a little while." 

He gives the eldegoss another few minutes to mourn. Then, ever-so-gently, he scoops him up in one arm. The eldegoss doesn't try to hold onto him as the gossifleur had, but he doesn't try to struggle away, either.

He holds them both close and begins to walk away from the fallen human. They snuggle into his powerful chest, weeping softly.

"It's okay, I'm here," 'Milo' says, even though it's a lie. 


End file.
